Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Wild and Wonderful

Graham is getting entirely too much face time on this blog, so Uncle J-Rod and Aunt Abby have decided to hijack the blog and share our adventures from this past weekend in West Virginia. We took the motorcycle on our first overnight road trip. It was 400 miles round trip and absolutely gorgeous. Here's a map of our route.

Our destination was Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. It's part of the North Fork Ridge on the banks of the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River. Seriously, that's the whole name of the river. And this type of outcropping is called a hoodoo. Here were are at the base with the rocks behind us. Lots of people come here to hike and rock climb. We just looked up from the bottom.The real adventure didn't come on the bike, however. Things got truly interesting when we made it to our motel- Yokum's Vacationland. (And yes, it does appear there is a typo on the postcard spelling Yokum's as Vokum's.) We knew we were in for a real treat when I found out it would cost us a whole $40 a night to stay there. Here's a shot of our super sexy room. Shirley Yokum, proprietor, kindly asked us in a note posted to the wall to forgive the slight stains on the sheet sets as the water in the laundromat has iron in it. No problem, Shirley. We have no intension of thinking up any other reason why there are brown stains on the sheets.Next we checked out the bathroom. The sign outside the motel promises hot showers. What they don't tell you is that the water will come out at about the rate of a slow post-nasal drip and it will be hot enough to brew tea. No joke. I burned my hand. Thankfully Jason is an engineer and around inventions all the time so he came up with the ingenious water-bottle shower (patent pending). The method is stand in the tub, suds up carefully with the slightly less scalding water from the sink and pour water from the water bottle over body. Rinse and repeat. If you're looking for a way to really conserve water, I highly recommend this.When we got to Harper's General Store in Seneca Rocks we realized West Virginia really was "Wild and Wonderful" (as promised in the tourism commercials). While perusing the cooler section for some liquid refreshment we came across this fancy treat...That's right- Bud light and Clamato juice together in a can! Despite the adventurous spirit of the weekend, we couldn't bring ourselves to do more than take a picture of it.

At the restaurant upstairs from the general store, I swiped a placemat featuring "Mountain Talk". Some of my favorite words are "biggety", "askeered of", and "lollygag". I also found 2 big white hairs in my chicken salad pita, but I won't bore you with the tale of my vittles.We really had a great time and the scenery was incredible. Our bums and legs are only a little sore and Jason says I can now officially call myself a biker chic. My mom is so proud. :)